Thread: Covers for big machines

I make mine from canvas painting drop cloths. I like their heft.

Cheap enough at Bunnings, but Aldi flogs them cheap from time to time.

A while ago I bought a stack of oiled canvas on gumtree. Basically the stuff a drizabone is made from. I wondered whether using that might go some way to dealing with the rust issue. I’ve used it for chisel rolls, wherein everything eventually gets covered in a very fine oil from the fabric.

Arrob

Originally Posted by tonzeyd

Am not disagreeing with your comment John, but until someone can tell me how to effectively collect all dust whilst using a hand held router I'll continue using my bbq covers.

No worries ,I understand the router issue with dust extraction particularly with older routers with little or no dust extraction. Unfortunately I am stuck with quite a few of the old routers,have since moved up to better ones that don't leave so much dust with their partnered DC.
Horses for courses I guess for the machinery covers, theres been some good ideas come out in this thread.
I am lucky being in the sticks that with the sheets taking them outside to shake any residue not collected ,I dont have any neighbours to worry about unlike those in an urban area.Hence my thing that sheets work for me.

Originally Posted by tonzeyd

Am not disagreeing with your comment John, but until someone can tell me how to effectively collect all dust whilst using a hand held routeI'll continue using my bbq cover.

What are you typically routing?

Growing up in Qld I was advised when I bought a knitting machine (good grief - 45 years ago) to cover it with a double layer of sheet/calico and plastic/vinyl. Never ever had a problem with rust and with dozens of those little hook needles you would know about it. Gave it away last year and still in pristine condition. Covering machinery now I would be inclined to use the painting drop sheets of heavy calico/light canvas. Less rusting in Canb

I had a couple of old tents to dispose of so cut them up and made covers for my thicknesser, pedestal drill and band saw. I put a piece of waxed cloth directly on the table of each. So far this has worked well. We have relatively low humidity here but being within 800 metres of the sea there is a small amount of salt in the air.

Originally Posted by BobL

What are you typically routing?

Typically... nothing typical or regular just depends on what I am working on at the time.

Some examples of what I've been doing:

- Solid wood edge banding for some shelves, I'd cut the banding slightly oversize and use router to flush trim, most pieces I've done on the router table but some are too long and had to do with a hand held router
- Flatten bench top, would have loved to have done this outside but bench is too heavy/awkward so left it in its place
- Rounding over bench dog holes

Plus there's stuff that causes dust that is on the "roundtuit" list eg drill press extraction

Tough ask to control wood dust in these situations.

I don't use my "out of the table" router much but the blokes at the mens shed seem to be really keen on this so last year I started installing some 150 mm elephant trunk dust collection for such situations. However like a bunch of other stuff that has stalled. Mens shed router users may or may not connect up a shop vac to catch some chips but the fine just does indeed just get sprayed all over the place. If they have the Evap AC fan running the fine dust is very quickly blasted out of the shed so much so that that it barely registered on the particle counter which is 3-6m away from the benches where routers are used.

I've found placing the elephant trunk hose close to the work helps. It has BobLs PVC bell mouthed hood on the end.

The router is a Festool, so it's OK on dust... But the makeshift hose placed within close proximity to the work makes a huge difference.

E.g. today I did 30 boxes that use a jig for hinges and after a loootttt of routing there was no dust. The jig and way these are hinged means the opportunity for DC is poor.

I've been thinking about a new kind of remote robot dust extraction system for larger workshops.

The fine dust collection is performed by a drone which has dust sensors and a HEPA filter powered by a large fan. The drone can be programmed to follow a woodworker or machine/tool like a router or just follow the dust trail and sit about 1m above the machine/operator and collect fine dust messes. When its filter efficiency is reduced beyond a certain level it goes outside and reverses the filter fan to blow out all the fine dust.

It would be fun to watch how it copes with more than one user and how it can duck and dive between OH ducting etc

Meanwhile on the floor an industrial robotic Vac collects chips - it would need to be programmed to keep out of the way - it too could dump its full load to a specific poo pile or hopper outside.

i've found that removalists blankets are excellent although the snazziest one I have is made from blue velvet I found in an op shop.